The Unity desktop was quite a big step forward in usability and design back when it came out (at least in my opinion), but by the end of the decade, the reskinned Gnome 3 environment became quite dated compared to the competitors. There are things in both macOS (window decorations) and Windows 10 that I like way more, but I also want to keep Ubuntu for the speed and stability.
This article will be quite short as we can prettify Ubuntu 20.04 and earlier versions in 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Dash to Panel for the Windows 10-like taskbar
Visit my previous article for the step-by-step instructions of installing Dash to Panel: https://randomblog.hu/make-ubuntu-beautiful/
Step 2: Use a macOS-like GTK3 theme for the window decorations
You can download a light and dark macOS theme from gnome-look.org here: https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1241688/
Click on the “Files” tab and download the 2 files on the top of the list:
- Mc-OS-CTLina-Gnome-Dark-1.3.2.tar.xz
- McOS-CTLina-Gnome-1.3.2.tar.xz
Extract the folders in the archives in your home directory under the .themes directory. If this directory is not present, create it yourself.
Fire up the Tweak tool which you probably installed in Step 1 and on the Appearance tab under Themes/Applications select the freshly installed dark or light macOS theme.
Step 3: Get a pretty background image for your desktop
80’s retro-future with lasers and cyber dinosaurs is all the rage… or it should be if it is not. I really love the aesthetics, so I highly recommend checking out the following site for kickass wallpapers: https://wallpaperplay.com/board/neon-80s-wallpapers
As a bonus, here is my current background image from the previously mentioned source:
